I really hope there is an in ground and on TV boycott after the way the PL and PFA are behaving. It won't happen but more than ever they are a sewer that needs cleansing. Shame it won't happen because the PL and PFA are playing a blinder showing how corrupt they are.

Yeah. Likewise Shame as this year has some good matches. (Some duds as well) but was genuinely excited to see Edge-Orton, Lynch-Bazler, Drew Vs Lesnar and the Fiend-Ceba matches. Also thought Styles could have made Taker have a decent match, the Bryan-Zayn match has great potential and a pre virus ladder match should have been good as well. A lot of this will be lessened by the lack of a crowd which is a shame as it was a good card. Am even more gutted it kiboshed the Takeover though.

My thoughts exactly! Hope it gets the bugger out of a job. Read somewhere that along with clubs using the government scheme to furlough non playing staff whilst still paying obscene wages, this could be the biggest PR disaster for the Premier League. I kind of hope it is so that football is brought back under control but I doubt that is going to be the case.

Load of rubbish. James in there. Longevity and quality are not the same thing. De Gea for all his brilliance was unconvincing at the start and for the last season or so. But hey, play for a big.club and in you get. There was a few keepers, not least Brad, who should.have been in that list.

Is it not how good they were for Rovers? As in Salgado was an excellent right back but was comparatively only good for us rather than one of the best in the world. So wouldn't be Rovers greatest ever RB. If that is the case Daily and Matteo weren't that good for us and Mulgrew made a much bigger contribution to us.

Hmm you may be right. That said with Hendry, McKinley etc around I think Mulgrew would be protected and flourish. Think we'd see the best of his passing and set pieces in this team. Also Mulgrew looked good in the championship in the relegation season. He was better than a league 1 player before his legs went.

See this is my issue! It may be me over thinking it but is it: A) The best 11 players we've had in terms of quality when at Rovers b) A variation on that whereby they have to genuinely work as a team. For example I may want Jansen, Shearer and Bellamy but along with 2 wingers it doesnt give me a workable formation in practice. C) My favourite 11 in which case quality goes on the backseat a bit more. Interestingly the only players to get in all 3 versions for me would be Friedel, Berg, Duff and Shearer. (And Tugay although objectively speaking I think he sneaks into the B criteria on nostalgia a bit.) The rest change depending on which criteria are used.

A lot of my favourite players were Scottish. Seemed to produce a tough as nails, never say die attitude, grit and steel type players: McKinley, Hendry, Gally all of whom I regarded very highly. Loved how fiery they all were and willing to put their bodies on the line. If we had those 3 in the team now we'd be in the top 2 no doubt. (Them in their playing days obviously...) Also Rhodes and Mulgrew need to be in there as both scored a lot of good goals. Rhodes carried the team at times whilst Mulgrew captained us to promotion and got a daft number of goals that season. Mind you we've had a few duds too and at cost Daily, Ferguson and not at cost Greer.

Not sure. The advertising still says on the WWE site, that the Network is the only place you can stream it for free. Given that's their advertising I can't see them not having it on the Network. That said whether WM goes ahead is a different matter in the current climate. NXT is the other main thing for me. The tape library is also excellent, but NXT consistently delivers, especially their Takeovers. There's much better story lines,matches and the general product feels better too. I also watch NXT UK although that is admittedly a step down from standard NXT. Their Takeovers are still great though. Yep, agree the main event meant the show ended on a low note. Swapping the chamber matches round would have been a huge win as the tag team one was excellent. (To be pedantic I think it was the 2nd ever tag chamber match, sorry.) But it was a quality match and would have let things go on a high. Still didn't rate the show that highly. For starters the women's match was poor - and that's difficult to do in a Chamber match. The nukber of participants, random entries and the environment all give the match a boost. I get that it was meant to make Shayna look a monster but there are still much better ways of doing it then what was produced. A higher calibre of opponents and some double teaming for starters. I'm always reminded of the Sting-Vader matches where Sting made Vader look a monster, yet the match still be engaging. (Am sure there are other examples too,) This however was just a boring squash. Add in the fact that the Prophets - RollinsMurphy match was just solid, the handicap match boring, the lack of main champions defending the belts (the top 3 belts weren't defended) and the lack of grudges/long term story lines in the show and it would struggle to get above a 6 for me. The men's chamber match was good and I really liked the Bryan-Gulak match (albeit it had an obvious ending) but overall that's not enough for a PPV in my opinion. Contrast this to the Takeovers, which (generally) provide excellent matches and better developed stories, and yeah, it just wasn't enough. To me there's been a number of shows where the main event just hasn't delivered. Hell in a Cell being another one which started off strongly, with an excellent Cell match between Banks and Lynch, and another strong match, before slowly fading into mediocre, and then utter farce at the end. There's been a large number of main events which have felt flat to me (HIAC from the year before that also immediately springs to mind) which suggests that WWE have a real issue on delivering on what they promise. It's a shame as the main roster can produce excellent matches, as evidenced by the men's chamber match.

Fixed it for you.

The more I read the more surprised I am that it hasn't been canceled with more and more people testing positive in the sport (never mind spectators) those in the sport are a) being put at risk and b) it undermines the integrity of the competition. Then factor in that the crowds still count as a largeish gathering and you think that would want to be discouraged. And before Chaddy quotes his best mate, the chief thingy acknowledged that cancelling events would lessen the strain on emergency services. To me, this seems like a rather handy thing to do in the circumstances regardless of its effects in slowing the virus.

Yep, obvious answer. In the case of 2 at least its made worse by being out of position. In Bell's case he's the only choice available too. No team can afford to carry 3 or 4 players even before you consider others' fitness issues or off days.

I can't imagine him being a success anywhere. That's the key problem. Actually I'm 99% certain that that's the case, but 100% certain he isn't going to be a success here without some kind of loan away from the club. All the more baffling why we didn't let him out on loan.

My rules for away kits: 1) Play in the blue and white halves whenever we can. That's what we are famous for. 2) Connect the away kit to Rovers in some way. For example the red and black halves, or the thin blue and white lines down the centre of a kit (a dark blue one I recall, but it's the blue and white lines on it I really like), or a blue and white trim. Show that it links to us. 3) Don't make the kit itself blue or white. If we need a third kit because the second kit also clashes, the away kit isn't doing its job. 4) Don't have a third kit full stop. It's just a money grabbing exercise. 5) Keep each kit for at least 2 years. I remember there was an outcry when kits were changed regularly when I was a lad. Heck I remember watching Football Focus and there was a segment on the teams that had changed their kits this season, it used to be such a rarity. Manure were mocked for it for shameless marketing. Now everyone does it. Away kits for 2 years minimum, home for at least 3 (or 4). 6) No absolutely hideous, stupid kits. The Euros keeper one and the Everton pink one spring to mind first of all. I'm sure there are a ton more. But let's not have any explosions in paint factories. Simples.

It is tricky interpreting TM's guff! Even in the SDack Graham analogy it's still pretty flawed as that hasn't been the combination for most of this season! Graham has been phased out all too rapidly (although not covering himself with glory) and Dack has been our since December, it's hard to see this having been a factor at all this season. Add in too last season Armstrong was on the wing and Samuel was injured - ergo Bereton was 3rd choice yet still had no impact it's a pretty disingenuous comment and an act of covering himself. Any roads I have no idea where he is getting said confidence in his ability from. Has looked very poor most of the time from what I have seen and heard and feel that it's best just to cut our losses. Derby sounded a woeful display and there are far too many of them from Bereton to make me think he will cut it at this level.

Think darrenrover has it right. He's not trying to boost the player but protect his "judgement". The reason I say this is because he is blatently spouting lies. As in if he said Ben has the potential to do X it's one thing, or we've not seen the best of him yet, that's fine. But to lie and say he hasn't done as well as he could because the other strikers are doing so well - which demonstrably from statistics and watching matches and highlights isn't true - isn't boosting the player at all. It's a porky, a fib, our strikers bar Armstrong haven't reached double figures combined. Half have played on the wing. It's utter fiction which undermines his and the player's crediblity.

P Indeed. Armstrong's rampant form has been matched by Gally's (4 league goals?) Graham (3?) and Samuel (2?) With stats like that Messi would struggle to get into our team

And TM is allegedly a man of integrity. Doesn't strike me as such from this article. Am sick of the PR lies spouted by managers: Kean, Bowyer, Coyle and now TM all have done it. Sickening really.

Also factor in that there are so many teams in the mix, a number of whom are above us, and we are reliant on a lot of them being on bad runs. Assuming 3rd-5th are our of reach (although not sure they are imo) that's still 3-4 teams we need to all be on bad runs. That simply won't happen. In fact Millwall are already showing they are in excellent form, so this whole other teams will continue to drop points is wishful thinking really. A bit like when we got relegated to League 1, there's far too much looking at how other teams will do and not enough reliance on our own ability.

So we're Stoke and Swansea. Should is not happening for us at the moment. It's not that it isn't possible mathematically, it's the fact that under TM we clearly won't do it. We bottle chances to capitalise on what other teams have done, hinder ourselves with an unbalanced squad and players out of position, and have an Achilles Heel against teams that shut up shop. On paper we have a chance to get into the playoffs but in reality it simply won't happen because we make the same mistakes over and over. Until TM stops doing this we are going nowhere. He hasn't stopped in 3 years so no reason for it to happen now.

Thing is we got it wrong Vs Stoke and Swansea too. Perhaps it's ineptitude rather than bottling it but the result is the same.

All this "it's a big week" stuff is tosh imo. What's there to be optimistic about in it? This week we've shown whether it's teams struggling at the bottom of the table or promotion rivals, either way we will bottle it.

Maybe more appropriate in this thread. He's not useless or we wouldn't be top half but this is surely why he has to go and has taken us as far as he can.

What is frustrating as hell is that there was nothing new, no surprises today. Under TM we go on winless runs that are relegation worthy. (Thank goodness our winning runs are promotion worthy. Sadly the winning runs are rendered impotent by the bad ones.) Bennett is not a right back. Nayambe is miles better at right back then in the centre. We didn't have enough defenders in the squad. Bell isn't good enough for first choice. Gally is not a wide player/wide forward whatsoever. Bereton isn't a player whatsoever. Travis can't do all the dirty work in midfield on his own. We need to play to the strengths of our best player (Armstrong) and for our game around him. What part of this is news or wasn't known in November? Heck most of it was known this time last year. And yet none of these issues has been addressed. That's sheer negligence. That's utter incompetence. You can't legislate for a ton of injuries or dodgy pens against you but all the above mentioned issues were redeemable. All could have been dealt with at numerous points in this season and last. To not do so, i.e. to keep doing the same thing, is the definition of madness. What's most galling is despite these idocies we have a handy team, a strong first 11 and just by eliminating the stupid, obvious, oft-repeated mistakes, we would be waltzing into the playoffs. Rant over.

No surprise that the side they target is the one with both wide players out of position. No coincidence imo.